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Every morning the bright sun rises and fills the sky, warming the entire island. Just as the heat begins to feel overwhelming, a light rain shower comes to cool you off. On any given day, you can spot a rainbow or feel a soft breeze. This is the Caribbean, and to most, it’s paradise.

In 2006, husband and wife Cal and Joan Coolidge decided to make that little slice of paradise their new home. They bought a small hotel in the Caribbean—on the US Virgin Island of Saint Croix, to be exact. The Pink Fancy Hotel, just like the island it sat on, was breathtaking.

Seventeen Steps of Stone recounts Cal and Joan’s real-life Caribbean adventure: how the two, with no hotel-management experience, left behind their comfortable suburban existence, stable jobs, and adult children to navigate a life and business on one of the most stunning islands in the eastern Caribbean.

Narrated by the couple themselves, this travelogue shares every twist and turn—the good and the bad—that they experienced while living (and working) in paradise.